Of Politics, Sports and Stuff

This is a true family story about a dad, an uncle, and a son, only one of them related to me. It goes back to the 40’s I’d guess, the 1940’s that is, remembering now that this may be read well past the – gasp – 2040’s, and ended in 2014. Or maybe it hasn’t ended yet. Maybe that will be up to someone who wasn’t even born when I wrote this, as I wasn’t when this story began. The story starts…or continues…or possibly ends…in 2014, when Cheryl and I were making a very big push to get our property ready for our niece Becca ’s wedding to a very cool guy name of Mark. I took a week off from work to complete a number of projects around the property that needed to be done so badly, I’d put them off for years. But now, in my judgement, they really did need to get done. And the biggest job of all, and most germane to this story, was to re-do the 80-foot walkway that runs along the front of our house.   The walk had consisted only of a very fine gravel from when mom and dad built the house bac

Sixteen years ago for my 50th birthday, my sister Sherry asked some family and friends of hers to write something about me so she could bind it up and give it to me as a gift. Very thoughtful. And beautifully put together with many of her sketches and drawings. Earlier this year, as I was cleaning out the garage (a seemingly non-stop process going on 20 years now, since the year we moved in), I came across her gift and put it aside to read later (perhaps for the first time) which I did a few days ago.  I couldn't bring myself to read all of them, but the ones I read were very nice and it was obvious that people for the most part had put a great deal of time into thinking of what to say.  All of them were really wonderful, but two of them were my favorites.  The first was from her friend Craig who wrote, "I can't recall with any degree of certainty whether or not I ever actually met your brother though I do remember you telling me that he was planning to ride his bike acros

I was going through a tough time recently, and was trying to sort through why, when I concluded that I felt like a napkin ring. Sort of useful but easily done without, not really good for much, and always just kind of there. So after a few days when the thought inevitably passed, and after I'd gotten over my murky self, I realized that lots of people probably felt the same way from time to time, so I decided henceforth that I would endeavor to not to let any day go by without validating at least one person. Honestly, it's not much of a commitment. I like to think I was doing that already.  This should probably be a separate post but it's not totally unrelated. And I'm taking you into a dangerous place known as Jamie World. I may even have written about this before, but it saddens me in the smallest of ways that people who love each other rely only on saying "Love ya!" to each other but can't seem to bring themselves to say "I love you". Perhaps t

 I don't believe I've posted anything about sex lately, or terribly much else for that matter, though possibly much that is terrible, so I'll post my favorite quote about sex here: "There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror." - W. Somerset Maugham

Cleaning out the garage I came across of a few of my old journals, one of which is circa-1978, the year I graduated from college and another from the early-to-mid 90's which mostly consisted of random lists and thoughts, sort of a blog before there were blogs. Here are a few of the entries: "If someone says something that's really deep, but it's over my head, how low must I be?  - Me to Fred Chapin 2-28-1993 Love not Hate Sailboats not Motorboats Sneakers not Shoes Baseball not Football Watercolors not Oils Democrat not Republican Listening not Talking Icing not Cake "It's raining now. I love the sound of rain. It is its own song."  - my "friend" Charlotte in a January 1993 letter to me from New Mexico

  I was reading this interesting opinion piece in the NY Times this week and was both impressed and a little envious as to the clear intellect and talent level of the author, Ezra Klein. And I wondered what it would be like to be that smart, not to mention talented. And that got me to thinking as to whether I'd rather be really smart or a really great athlete. I decided I'd rather be a really great athlete because I think being that smart makes one all the more troubled by what's going on in the world. But that's probably not very smart. And then I thought, if I could one one of the ten best in the world at something, what would it be?  How about you? Maybe we should just go with People. Same as we've been trying to do.